GOOD Launches Local Community at Pop-Up Center

Paint up your old Tom's Shoes. For every pair you purchase, a pair is given to a kid in need. Photo by Oh!No! Doom Collective via Flickr

Swap goods and skills, donate old shoes for art, make a mini-windmill, bake bread and learn to harvest honey from your own beehive, stock up at a seed bomb vending machine, plant an herb garden and make a planter from reclaimed materials, screenprint your t-shirt, learn to bring free wi-fi to your community. These workshops and more activities will happen under one roof on Saturday, April 9, plus walking, biking, and staircase-climbing tours. It's part of GOOD magazine going local with GOOD LA. Take a look and see how to bring it to your town, too.

In the effort to develop local communities, the obvious place for GOOD magazine to start was home in Los Angeles, where participants in monthly events have clamored for more. To celebrate the start of this local venture at GOOD LA, Alissa Walker programmed a weekend of non-stop fun experiences, April 8-10. The community-based idea will bring together "people, projects, events, and ideas working toward moving the city forward."

It begins Friday night with "Steal This Idea: GOOD Design LA" which will showcase a designer challenge, matched with eight complex environmental problems submitted by the Metro system, the mayor's office, and others. Each designer will present their solution before a live audience with Q&A; to follow and the ideas will be featured in GOOD magazine.

On Saturday, the above-mentioned DIY workshops and urban adventures (plus lots more), take place at GOOD's Pop-Up Community Center where 24 local vendors will convene at Atwater Crossing, a creative collection of industrial buildings converted into an Arts and Innovation Complex, with artisanal manufacturing facilities, studios, a yoga space, and theaters.

The Community Sharing Center brings together neighborhood Time Banks, LA Food Swap, and other like-minded exchanges, to provide the experience of sharing and trading veggies and clothing, goods and skills. Other activities include civic engagements, literary readings, demos, and locally-made goods with organizations, such as TreePeople and the Do Good Bus which roams around and pays it forward.

On Sunday, the first meeting of the GOOD Book Club happens at CicLAvia, Los Angeles' 7-1/2 miles of car-free streets from 10 am-3 pm, a route for people to walk, skate, play, and ride a bike. Readers will discuss Reyner Banham's Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies with LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne. And there's a GOOD LA after-party, free to bike riders.

The upcoming issue of the magazine focuses on cities, taking a look at LA and asking readers to answer: How do we turn a sprawling 20th century beast into the city of the 21st century? One answer: Common Ground and 100,000 Homes are working with the United Way and LA Housing Authority to house the most vulnerable homeless people in the city (and the nation).

The next local stop is probably New York, where there's a strong GOOD community. If you want to connect with GOOD readers in your town, let them know. An awesome event like this could kick it off!

And if you're in LA, check out the schedule and RSVP at GOOD to attend an event or workshop.